


bet

by renardroi



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Thrall - Freeform, brief mentions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 06:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8091874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renardroi/pseuds/renardroi
Summary: Taako takes the chalice.





	

Magnus rejects the chalice. Merle does the same. 

Taako takes the chalice. 

Not for his assistant’s mistake, for so many reasons. Merle and Magnus, despite everything, haven’t left him behind, even when they had their disagreements, even when Taako took that fate into his own hands and staunchly refused to go any further - even when he told them to go on without him, still they wanted him to come along.

If people could be a home, he thought maybe they could. 

And going so far back, changing what he had done, he would be giving them up for something that had not even been his own fault. There was no guarantee they’d be brought together again in this changed timeline.

And there was no guarantee that changing that one incident would prevent it from happening, some other time, some other place. He couldn’t change a person’s heart. 

Phandalin was something else entirely. _That_ had been their fault. _That_ he could fix. Not for Gundren, though he was Magnus’ cousin, but for the entire town that had been needlessly destroyed, caught in the jaws of past conflict turned to current grudges. It was an easy fix. They didn't release the boy. 

And it was not as if they were sacrificing one life for many, as they could easily return after they calmed Gundren, after he was parted from the hungry gauntlet, they could go to the boy afterwards and free him. Both he and the town unharmed. 

He was sure all of them could see that, see the reason in it. And it seemed like the chalice wasn’t so greedy for destruction and death, wasn’t even particularly powerful if they couldn’t change anything else in the new timeline. It couldn’t be abused if they used it to prevent genocide, because it couldn’t be used after that at all - or so it seemed. 

They _knew_ that...probably. But could they bear the weight of their mistake? They seemed already so burdened by their previous mistakes - if they could be called that. Taako could hardly find fault in them. But if the two of them were laid low by what was not truly their fault, then Phandalin must have haunted them - would haunt them. 

But if he took the chalice, then they would not remember it. They would never know, and the knowledge that in the end they had saved people would keep him from carrying it too close to his heart. 

It was an easy decision in the end. Taako takes the chalice, determined, confident, one hand grasping the stem and the other under the bowl of it. It's heavier than he thought it’d be, and strangely - it's not cool to the touch. Not warm, but not cold, and oddly...soft. He pulls it close to his chest, peering over the rim and down into it, almost expecting something to be inside, but all he sees is the white space around them, reflected into it.

“I knew,” June breathes, almost a sigh of relief, and Taako looks up and sees that they're alone. The others are gone. He’s comforted, though, by the thought that he’ll see them soon, and they’d get to go on their adventures once more. June has a small smile. “I knew you’d understand.”

Then she fades, and disappears, and Taako is left standing in infinite. Until suddenly he’s not, and he’s looking up at a small, scrappy looking orc boy.


End file.
